In order to use the Real-Time Shipping calculation function between 3dcart and your shipping carriers, you must specify correct information for where you are shipping from. This is specified in the Real Time Shipping Information portion of your cart's Shipping Method screen.

In the upper portion of the page, you will see an area labeled "Real Time Shipping Information." This section is used by the real time shipping calculators of the cart to provide the shipping carriers with a departure point of reference for the orders. In other words, this will be the geographic area where your products are coming from and it is tied to the geographic area where your customer are shipping the order to. The shipping carrier (UPS, FedEx, USPS, etc) will then take these two variables and calculate the cost based on their individual rates.

Real Time Shipping Information

To access the shipping methods screen from your 3dcart control panel:

Go to Settings ->Shipping

Click on the "Enter Settings" button (located in the "Carrier Settings" section)

On the next page, look towards the top left and click on the + symbol next to "Real Time Shipping Location"

Enter your warehouse/store's Country, City, State, and Zip.

Click Save at the top right to commit the settings.

Once updated, the shipping carriers will use this address for the shipping calculations.

Real Time Calculation

When you integrate your 3dcart store with a specific shipping carrier like USPS, your store will be able to connect to the carrier and calculate a relatively accurate shipping cost for your shoppers and their orders.

To explain how it works; when an order is placed, the store takes into account where the order will be shipped from (you or your drop shipper's location), where the order is going to (your shopper's address) and how much the order will weigh (all item weights summed). 3dcart's software then sends this information to the respective shipping carriers and requests a quote of the shipping rates for the order. Once the rates are received, they are added to the order's selection areas and your shopper can select which method they'd like to have their shipment sent through. We refer to this as a real time shipping calculation.